Word thieves

You subscribe to slick, glossy andwildly expensive magazines – and you’re sick to death of sticky-fingered friends and co-workers walking off with them. Right?

Good news: So is British adman, Ben Gough, and he’s done something about it. Gough had some design-team pals mock-up some clever and completely spurious fake magazine covers to slip over his pricey monthly copy of advertising trade journal, Lürzer’s Archive. As often happens these days, Gough’s office prank went viral, and now he and his firm are all over the news.

Now, subscribers to Lürzer’s Archive are offered one of the silly covers to protect their treasured rag, but the whole scheme seems counterproductive. Won’t readers who spot a copy of De-Worming World (cover blurb: “Free Surgical Wipe for Every Reader!”) be more likely to take it home for laughs than they would any old ad-world mag?